Hi Mike,

This really depends on a few things.  As a general rule though, things like squeeze pages aren't necessarily meant to look good, but rather they are meant to convert.  Therefore the message is far more important than the appearance.  In fact most squeeze pages are flat-out ugly in most markets, but they work.

For your emails, I know John generally recommends using plain-text emails.  The main reason is plain-text gives the appearance that the message was sent from a person, rather than a faceless corporation.  I've also had experiences with companies using fancy email templates, where they probably look great, but i can't tell because I can't view the entire body of the email from left-to right on my screen, which I find to be terribly annoying.  In fact it makes me just send their emails to trash because they are too much of a hassle to read. 

I wish my cable company sent plain-text email, to be honest.

However, once people are on your list, the website and pages you send them to can, and should probably look really great, but that's because they have already subscribed and there is room for aesthetics at that point.  So the rest is about the experience they have with you and branding your website probably adds to the mystique of it all.

But again for things like squeeze pages, you don't really know what works best until you test.  Therefore it's better to start with ugly and work your way up, if it seems that ugly just isn't doing the job.

I think your website looks pretty sharp though.

Steve